Hard and soft

Kent Falls State Park, in Kent, Conn.

“A waterfall means the coming together of something hard in Nature and something soft. Over the shelf of igneous rock, a stream descends to cut away the softer rock below. And, as is often true in the case of a hard edge joined to a softness and a movement, peculiar beauty comes of it.

“New England waterfalls like this one, with their white plumes spilling downward step by step, remind one of the age and gentleness of New England mountains, and, where they flow, they give the land a voice.’’

--Robie Macauley, in “New England Waterfall,’’ in Arthur Griffin’s New England: The Four Seasons